The auction raises money to pay stipends for Pepperdine University law students who do unpaid public interest internships during the summer.
By Troy Dove/Special to The Malibu Times
Students at Pepperdine University School of Law are gearing up for their annual Advocates for Public Interest Law auction, which takes place April 5 in the school’s atrium. The event, hosted by the student-run APIL, serves to help raise money for the university’s law students entering into unpaid public interest internships over the summer.
“If you work at a pro bono firm they don’t pay you minimum wage, they pay you zero,” said Michael Ashington-Pickett, APIL president. “So for those people to make rent or make ends meet, they have to get money from somewhere. The money that we raise from the auction, 100 percent of it, goes back into the student body in the form of summer stipends.”
APIL Vice President Michael Moss said most of the money for the summer stipends comes directly from the auction
The nine students who received the stipends last summer worked with firms such as the Children’s Law Center of L.A., the California Women’s Law Center and the HIV/AIDS Legal Service Alliance. One award recipient had the opportunity to serve as an intern with the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines.
“We don’t pay all their expenses,” Ashington-Pickett said. “All we do is lighten the load on them. The more money we raise, the more students that can go into this or the more we can reimburse the students for their expenses.”
APIL has collected donations for the auction from Pepperdine students and faculty during the past year. The organization is also seeking donations from the Malibu community. “We’ve had professors donate weekends or entire week trips,” Ashington-Pickett said “This is not just $20 to KFC, there have been some pretty large donations. There will probably be things going for half of what they’re worth”
Included among the trips to be auctioned off this year are weekends in Palm Springs, Big Bear and St. Louis. Moss said a trip to the world poker tournament in Los Angeles “was one of our biggest selling donations last year.”
There will also be the standard auction items up for bid, including free passes to various local theme parks, gift certificates from local area businesses and dinners with Pepperdine professors.
In addition to the live auction, this year APIL will offer an auction Web site, donated by the Pepperdine IT department, where people can bid on items in a silent auction. The site, http://law.pepperdine.edu/apilauction, is expected to be posted by the end of the week. The silent auction will take place on April 4 and 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. People can also bid on the silent auction in person at the law school building.
The live auction will take place from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. People can bid on items for the live auction through the Web site prior to the actual start of the event. But Internet bidding will close before April 5.
For additional information about the auction or about the APIL, contact Michael Ashington-Pickett at michael.ashington-pickett@pepperdine.edu or call 804.2237. To make a donation to the auction, contact Amy Klausman at amy.klausman@pepperdine.edu or 562.440.9671. There will be a $5 entry fee for the live auction on April 5.